


Friend Servilia

by theoldgods



Category: Rome (TV 2005)
Genre: Casual Sex, Cunnilingus, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Friends to Enemies, Hate Sex, Historical References, Older Woman/Younger Woman, Period Typical Attitudes, Power Dynamics, Pre-Canon, Unreliable Narrator, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-01 21:32:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12713355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoldgods/pseuds/theoldgods
Summary: As Caesar leaves for Gaul, a newly widowed Atia, at loose ends in the city, finds herself drawn to the company of her uncle’s very proper mistress.





	Friend Servilia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kangeiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/gifts).



> Written for Yuletide 2017 for kangeiko! I hope you have a great fest.
> 
> This should follow the canon presentation of history overall, while filling in with some real world cultural/historical background where canon doesn’t directly contradict it. 
> 
> Please see endnotes for content warnings, if necessary, as well as some historical notes for those curious.

Atia first calls her uncle’s mistress her friend on Caesar’s last night in Rome. Caesar’s home overflows with family and would-be friends, draped over Calpurnia’s couches, drowning in their cups. Calpurnia herself sits quiet and beatific near the fountain, a statue clad in pale blue who nods dispassionately to each approaching well-wisher.

Caesar, holding court amongst a throng of helpful senators, glances back once at Servilia of the Junii. The pretext is her son, new to senatorial purple and leaving Rome to help preside over some far-flung territory, hovering by his mother’s shoulder while Servilia takes more wine from a passing slave. Servilia and Caesar make no eye contact, but Atia feels the sudden expanse of Servilia’s chest under her stola as if they shared the same lungs.

Calpurnia ignores all of them, including her husband’s niece, and Atia ends up on the same couch as Servilia once Brutus has attached himself to Caesar again.

“What a pleasant evening, though it’s too cold, nay? I hope my uncle doesn’t freeze to death amidst his barbarians.”

Servilia smiles, so guilelessly that Atia first looks around for the source of the delight. Servilia’s eyes, discomfitingly deep and calm, land on her own.

“Are you settling well into Rome? It is a rough city for country widows, I’m told.”

“Did you find it so yourself?”

Servilia’s mouth flexes against her goblet.

“I have always stayed here when possible, to provide Brutus with the touchstone I think best. If he will not take a wife, I must yet attend the family’s affairs.”

Atia feels delight—creeping, jumping naughtiness—lurking at the base of her throat as she chooses her next words.

“I thank the gods for Calpurnia’s help in wrangling the men of the Julii.” Atia leans forward, her arm brushing Servilia’s. “I pray Venus will grant her and Caesar a pleasant evening, the dear woman. I fear she will miss him overmuch once he has gone.”

“Venus blesses all the Julii, of course.” Servilia’s little finger is sensuously cool against Atia’s wrist, a refreshing touch like that of the frigidarium, and a ghost of it lingers long after she has withdrawn her hand. “I have heard your dear little ones are already as blessed in their beauty and natures as their mother and their great-uncle.”

“That is kind of you,” Atia says, and for a moment, as her buzzing mischief creeps higher, she even means it. “While Caesar is gone I must find new fathers for my boy, Octavian, before he can grow into womanish habits. He is a lovely boy, though still as biddable as a sheep.”

Servilia sighs, deep and earnest, and Atia shuffles backward, fighting the startled twitch of her lips. “It is a great struggle, for us women alone in the world, to keep our sons among men. I am grateful to Caesar for all he has shown to Brutus. A great kindness to an old widow and her boy.”

“My uncle can be kind, though I daresay it is easy to be honorable to such a woman as yourself.” Atia looks ostentatiously back at Calpurnia, lost among a sea of guests, and listens to the amused puff of air that passes between Servilia’s lips. “It is a pity we do not see you more often—Calpurnia is, of course, rather retiring, and I can scarce get her to mine for an evening, never mind to host us all herself.”

“It’s no matter, truly, though you are kind to think of me.” Servilia’s fingers are nigh as brazen as Antony’s, crossing Atia’s chest for the bowl of figs on the table in front of them, and the mixture of Antony and Servilia both in her head makes Atia shiver. “Brutus’s ties with Caesar will ensure I’m never far from the Julii. But if you are adrift, back in Rome and now to be without Caesar, you must allow me to return your family’s benevolence.” She pauses, then continues in a more diffident tone, “Widowhood can be very hard, I’m told, though I have not felt so myself.”

Atia laughs, entirely without forethought, though thankfully it is late enough in the evening that hardly anyone around them is sober enough to notice.

“Widowhood is Rome, and for that I have only the deepest relief.”

Antony walks past their couch, paying them no mind en route to the crowd around Caesar, and Atia gathers the folds of her stola as Servilia leans back. Atia can feel the satisfaction rising from Servilia, and though she does not understand it, a similar contentment leaks through her own bones.

“We will see each other again soon, I’m sure, friend Servilia,” she says as she stands.

Servilia takes a long draught of wine, and her wet mouth sparkles in Atia’s memory for hours afterward.

“I look forward to it.”

* * *

Her husband’s household— _her_ household—has a bath of its own, of course, though only the one pool. Atia bathes there often enough in her first months of widowhood, but the clamoring of slaves and children slowly begins to wear on her ears worse than any bathhouse gossip. Some weeks after Caesar has traded his various women for the frontier, taking Antony with him, Atia goes to the public baths to lose herself in the wittering of strangers.

During one such session, dozing half asleep in an empty calidarium while Merula brushes her newly washed hair, she opens her eyes to find herself face to face with Servilia.

“Forgive me,” Servilia murmurs, blinking, as she lowers herself into the pool across from Atia. Her slave stands behind her, a long robe in hand. “Often enough it is empty at this hour, or at least...anonymous.”

Water laps at Atia’s chin as Servilia’s limbs displace it. Atia sighs and closes her eyes again.

“No matter, friend. You will be quieter than the noisy geese I call children.”

Servilia’s soft laugh echoes.

“They are well?”

“Octavian has just had a letter from his uncle Caesar, though what he could possibly have to say yet is beyond me. One single line and yet my boy is transported with delight.”

“I sympathize.”

Servilia’s voice is quiet, though steady. Atia cracks open one eye to watch her lean back into the hands of her slave.

“I should hope he tells you more than he tells a little boy.”

“Caesar is no great correspondent,” Servilia says, washing a leg as her slave works at unbinding her hair. “I do not think the Julii take well to poetry.”

“Octavia does,” Atia admits, wondering at Servilia’s ability to make her _speak_ so, little pieces of nonsense she had no intention of truly sharing with her uncle’s woman, this interloper into the gens Julia who treats them with compassionate disinterest. “I’d have her practice her cithara, but she loves verse more than any other art the tutors put in front of her, and far more than she loves her weaving.”

Servilia considers this undutiful recalcitrance with a smile that is nowhere near as calculated as Atia’s own would be. “She will be a woman soon enough, and poetry is far from a failing in any well-bred girl. I myself did not find the rhythm of the loom very grounding until after my marriage.”

“Tedious.” Atia stretches her arms along the edge of the pool as Servilia nods inscrutably. “I’ve never had the skills or patience our slaves do for it all.” Her lips twist. “My family is better dressed the less time I spend among the weavers.”

“Practical.” Servilia shifts forward, her perfectly small breasts skimming the water, and Atia refuses to look away. “That I can certainly admire.”

She slides beneath the surface, and Atia’s heart beats faster each second Servilia spends submerged. When she eventually emerges, gasping, her hair dark and wet across the curves of her shoulders, Atia releases a tiny, shuddering breath.

“My hope is that Caesar will make good work of the tribes, of course,” Servilia says as she retreats to the edge of the pool once more and her slave takes her sopping curtain of hair in hand. “I do not think he should rush home, lest Pompey and Crassus decide he is better off removed from the situation entirely.” She tilts her head to remove the water from one ear. “Clodius is a libertine wretch and probably best left with less power than he’s been given, but he speaks well enough for them, though I’ve heard he intends to have Cicero tossed on his ear.”

“Ah, they all love themselves more than anything else.” Atia shrugs and leans more deeply into Merula’s brushstrokes. “Weaklings all, and I dare say time away from our lovely city would only do Cicero good.”

“You don’t care for politics.”

Servilia’s words are stated as fact, without even a hint of query underneath, and little enough censure. Atia fights to remain quiet and ends by addressing the ceiling in what she knows is a pale imitation of unconcern.

“It’s well enough as most men go, though so often it seems a distracting game with little relation to reality.”

“A dangerous game,” Servilia murmurs, and her face is as placid as ever as Atia looks at her, though her eyes burn, a deep enough blue to be nearly black. “And yet sadly necessary.”

Atia has, bewilderingly, nothing to say in return. As the silence deepens around them, and Merula finishes her work, Atia finds herself sliding back into an uneasy sleep.

“Domina.”

She is roused by Merula’s hand on her shoulder and blinks her eyes open. Across from her, Servilia is motionless beneath her slave’s gentle attention to her hair.

“Entirely too warm,” Atia says, standing. The water sluicing over her breasts stings, whisper-thin liquid tracing down to her cunt. Servilia watches her, and Atia finds her attention, the careful sweep of her eyes down Atia’s body, both calming and terrifying.

* * *

Clodius succeeds in exiling Cicero and even in sacking his house in the aftermath—he is her uncle’s creature, so there was never any chance of it being otherwise. The hold he takes over the streets in the days and weeks following amuses Atia, from what little she bothers to follow of it all; certainly his roving bands of men seem popular enough with the plebs, though they cause other tribunes and the so-called optimates and their own street fellows no end of heartburn.

“Cicero’s old place is no loss, really,” she tells a rigid Servilia, one morning in Atia’s atrium, as they watch Octavia and Octavian at their lessons amongst slaves at the loom. “If Clodius would put a statue of Priapus there, it would at least be solid entertainment, never mind whatever halfway respectable idea he actually has.”

“It’s rather haphazard,” Servilia says, her voice tight and warmer than usual. “He already teeters on the edge of going beyond what Caesar or Pompey can accept, if they don’t want the backlash to land on them as well.”

“Best indeed my uncle stays away, then.” Atia pushes a bowl of olives toward Servilia and shrugs when she ignores them. “If Clodius falls on his face in the end, I hardly think it can mean much to the honor of the man civilizing Gaul.”

“You are right, of course.” Servilia chooses a grape instead, carefully rolling it between the pads of her steady fingers while Atia watches. “And yet our republic is a delicate creature, subject even to the flailings of a midge like Clodius.”

Atia reaches for Servilia’s wrist, tries to temper her touch into something that will not startle her companion. The line of Servilia’s neck relaxes as Atia massages her arm, and Atia ignores the tender flash of relief this produces in her gut.

“Whatever becomes of him or the whole damned Senate, Rome will endure.”

Servilia’s smile is bitter.

“Living in a carcass of a city, ruled by Clodius and his thugs, is no life at all for noblewomen.”

“Living is living,” Atia says, before she can bother to think too deeply about Servilia’s worries. “As long as we have our families, what of it if the city runs loose for a time? Caesar and Pompey will tire eventually, you said so yourself, and put anything out of line back to rights.” She stands. “Come, let my loom clear your head.”

Servilia gets to her feet slowly and rather splendidly, the copper ringlets of her hair shining in the sunlight filtering in, her stola a dark red, bordering on brown. Atia, in blood red inset with gold, as she’s taken to wearing in Caesar’s absence, feels peculiarly large and gaudy alongside her, and her sense of self unmoors further when Servilia leans into her.

“Juno, but these fools have me at unease all over,” Servilia murmurs, looking at the tiles below their feet. “It is probably best to return to my own loom.”

“If you’re weary, friend, take one of my couches.” The offer startles Atia nearly as much as it does Servilia, whose face widens as she glances up. “A room, even, considering how loud things are at the moment.”

“If you would be so kind—”

Halting, and calculated—Atia knows calculation when she encounters it. And yet Servilia’s dependency both horrifies and entrances her, so that she goes along, escorting Servilia and her slave into an unused cubiculum.

“Thank you,” Servilia murmurs before Atia can return to the atrium, and her mouth is cool and lingering against Atia’s cheek. Atia turns to reply and touches her mouth to Servilia’s instead.

There is little that is sisterly in the tightening of Atia’s stomach and loins, and Servilia’s face as she separates them is full of fire, unlike anything Atia has ever seen from her.

“Thank you.”

Servilia falls onto the couch so very gracefully, her hair spreading across the pillow, and Atia swallows and says polite little nothings before returning to her children.

After that, Atia knows she has no choice but to devour Servilia whole, before Clodius’s spreading wildfire can. She has never bothered with women—never seen the point, when fingers are no replacement for cock—but Servilia has always lurked around the edges of the Julii like a challenge, and there is an almost bewitching fascination to the idea of filling her uncle’s place so very literally.

Not a week later she has two fingers up Servilia’s shockingly tight cunt, Servilia’s moans filling the emptied atrium around them. Servilia had dismissed all of her slaves with scarcely a look, before Atia could even speak, and it was the work of scant moments to haul herself astride Servilia’s hips.

 _I am Antony with tits_ , Atia thinks, with deepest satisfaction, as she looks down at Servilia’s scrunched face. Servilia’s lightly wrinkled hands are white around the edge of the couch beneath them, her fingers scrabbling for grip, the bottom of her blue stola tangled around her waist. _But Juno’s cunt, she is a noisy fucker._

It’s among the loudest sex Atia has ever had, for Servilia’s groans cannot go unanswered. The sucking heat of her around Atia’s fingers, as if to pull Atia up into her stomach, is both startling and exquisite, and Atia’s voice feels rich and powerful as it spills from between her lips. She tries to speak, some sort of gruff gab like that every man in her life has eventually succumbed to, but she cannot look away from Servilia’s mouth, the wide blue stare glittering beneath her.

Servilia goes quiet when she comes, a bitten-off stiffness returning to her. Atia gasps noisily and does not move, her knees tightening around Servilia’s waist.

“Venus bless me,” she says, as Servilia’s shoulders loosen. “All of that for two pathetic fingers?”

“I wouldn’t sully your family’s honor or my own by admitting the truth to my household.”

Something thuds dully at the base of Atia’s skull. “I very much enjoy claiming another human being so. No wonder men run around so certain of themselves.”

“Like rutting with a drunken bull.” Servilia smiles while Atia stiffens above her. “Is that how Antony takes you? Poor woman.”

“Does Caesar know he shares you with a bull?” Atia’s fire has turned to stone, and she slides off of Servilia perfunctorily, reaching for her undergarments. “What sort of nonsense do you think I do in my bed?”

“Unsatisfactory nonsense, apparently.”

Atia laughs. “Do you want me to fuck you _gently_ , Servilia?”

“I’d settle for ‘competently.’”

Atia leaves her half naked on the couch. Servilia’s body slave emerges from a cubiculum to stare at Atia as she fixes her palla by the door.

“Your mistress is a self-satisfied bitch. Tell her I said so, would you please?”

Atia resolves then, standing in the entryway waiting for Merula and the guards, to have no more time for her uncle’s whore. She finds herself buried up to the knuckles in Servilia of the Junii four days later, three days after that, two days after that, a cycle of perfunctory straddling and release that she takes to as if it were a lesson in tenaciousness set to her by one of her childhood tutors.

Servilia’s body is lithe and warm, more wrinkled than Atia’s own and somehow more delicate as well, twenty years only sharpening a grace Atia has never had. Her gasping and moaning slowly transitions from pantomime to something more sincere, and when, in their third encounter, Atia strokes Servilia’s nub in concert with the fingers inside her, Servilia’s cunt throbs around her. The headiness this produces in Atia in response carries her through the rest of the day, through Octavia’s willfulness and Octavian’s meek acquiescence.

In their sixth encounter, Servilia ends up astride Atia, whose pulse leaps rabbit-quick in her throat as Servilia brings her mouth to Atia’s nipple. The touch of Servilia’s lips is suspiciously gentle, and her fingers rub circles into Atia’s hips and then lower still as Atia stifles a giggle of impatience.

“How _sweet_ you are.”

Servilia does not look up, merely traces her mouth across Atia’s stomach and continues downward. She pauses with her head above Atia’s mound and strokes the wiry hair there as goose pimples dart across Atia’s scalp.

“You never have.”

“What sort of blasphemy do you have planned?”

The proximity of Servilia’s mouth to her cunt is more thrilling than it has any right to be, considering. In answer, Servilia brings her lips alongside her finger.

The touch is to the hair only, not even the skin beneath, and yet Atia bites back an entirely pleasant yelp.

“Mark Antony would not kiss you here any more than would your husband.”

“I fuck _men,_ not womanish cowards.”

“Of course,” Servilia says, with a fluttering of her eyelashes that drives Atia to a growl of amused disgust. Servilia’s mouth traces a slow circle down to the roots of the hair while Atia feels her body constrict.

“Caesar would never.” Atia’s thoughts are pinging haphazardly around her head, and her breath keeps pace. “Never—“

Servilia’s tongue flickers across her skin, and Atia’s voice stops entirely.

To have another noblewoman _debase_ herself so, lose her mouth and all its purity in Atia’s cunt, is astonishingly potent. What detachment Atia usually maintains in their couplings rapidly deteriorates in the wake of Servilia’s tongue and lips working Atia’s nub, long strokes down to her entrance, pushing in and out with devastating slowness.

“ _Harder_.”

Servilia pays her no mind, one hand wrapped around one of Atia’s wrists while the other tickles in the wake of her mouth. Atia should move, should assert herself in this onslaught of debilitatingly relentless pleasure, but finds herself held back against the couch by some force far stronger than Servilia’s slender hand. When after several long minutes she comes, for the first time in their encounters, it’s with a scream Atia forcibly taps down into a snarl.

* * *

Atia takes Servilia’s mouth often in the weeks that follow, and Servilia goes to this new duty as if she were serving Caesar himself. Her wide-eyed stoicism, her cool murmurs, the tracing pleasure of her fingers and tongue—all fulfill the burning restlessness at Atia’s core, and Atia grows remarkably fond of Servilia’s pale, high cheekbones pressed against her mound, how Servilia’s curls stick to her forehead each time she finishes, tacky sweat and Atia’s own essence darkening Servilia’s delicate lips.

In the depths of summer, as half the patrician population has fled for cooler villas, leaving Clodius to his fevered rule over the streets, Atia lies in a pool of sweat in her marriage bed, gasping as Servilia slides, so perfectly composed but for the film of Atia across her mouth, from between her legs. Servilia remains poised over Atia’s mound, trailing an almost gentle finger through the curls there as Atia’s heart rate slows.

“Have you heard from your uncle?”

It takes the words a long moment to penetrate Atia’s ears and another few breaths for Atia to process the question. Servilia’s words are as casual as Servilia ever is, but the guardedness that lurks just below them belies something—desperation, Atia decides—that makes Atia turn her head briefly against her pillow to smile.

“Not since Cicero was banished.” Atia stretches, forcing Servilia to slide further away from her. “He trusts Calpurnia and me to do as needed, of course.”

Servilia’s mouth softens. Atia closes her eyes and sighs in contentment as Servilia gets to her feet.

The Roman heat drives everyone to distraction, as it does every year, and probably none moreso than Caesar’s wild little tribune. Atia laughs when she hears of how Clodius’s men have attempted to seize Pompey himself, forcing one of Rome’s great men to linger around his own house as if he were a delicate Greek matron. Servilia herself does not visit Atia for a week after the besiegement begins, a silence Atia finds alternately amusing and frustrating, and after an evening spent riding her own fingers, Atia invites herself to Servilia’s.

“I hope you have not been unwell, friend Servilia.”

Servilia works steadily alongside her slaves at the looms, her head bowed in supplication to the threads before her.

“Not at all, Atia.” Her voice is still and deep, and her eyes remain focused on the task before her. “I have been kept busy with the work of running a household, as ever, and Clodius’s dreadful business against Pompey has scared my slaves abominably.”

“Ah, yes, a few of my kitchen sluts have been reluctant to venture out to the market.” Atia had cured them of that sentiment with her whip, while resisting the temptation to put one buxom Greek whore’s mouth to better use. “Better that than they feel any sort of sympathy for Clodius’s plebian mess, surely?”

“Grain doles are all very well, but attacking such an esteemed man is quite beyond Clodius’s remit as tribune.”

“Ah, Pompey could use the exercise the fear will give him.” Atia finishes her wine and holds the cup out for a passing slave. “I daresay he and Caesar cannot be friends for all eternity, not if my cousin doesn’t give Pompey a son, so let him sweat in the meanwhile.”

Servilia glances up from her loom, though her fingers do not slow. “Truly, you are Caesar’s own blood.”

Color rises in Atia’s cheeks, and she busies herself with the bowl of grapes to hide her pleasure.

Servilia is still cool when she finishes her section of weaving and dismisses the slaves, and she settles on a separate couch from Atia, sipping at heavily watered wine. Atia’s cunt throbs as silence reigns.

“It has been a hot week, nay?”

Servilia drinks more deeply from her cup. When she speaks, it’s in the politest tone Atia has yet heard from her. “Did you want something, Atia?”

Atia’s laugh sounds like one of the mangy dogs her husband had been so despicably fond of. “Juno’s cunt, woman.”

Servilia nods, almost thoughtfully. “You do sound so like him.”

“You bed one member of the Julii, you bed us all.”

“Oh,” Servilia murmurs, brushing a curl from one of her sparkling eyes, “I meant Mark Antony.”

His name on her tongue sounds like a terrible oath. Something flashes across Atia’s forehead, a rough heat, and she’s across to Servilia’s couch and astride her in four quick steps.

“And he your lover’s favorite, lest you’ve forgotten.”

Servilia’s eyelids flutter as she leans her head back, baring her neck to the pressure of Atia’s fingertips. “So Caesar tells me.”

Atia slides a finger down Servilia’s undergarments, seeking the heat of her entrance. The edges of her vision go momentarily blurry as she makes contact and Servilia groans beneath her.

“What do _you_ want, Servilia?” Atia hisses, pulling the undergarments down to expose Servilia’s cunt to the fetid air around them. “My uncle’s cock, back inside you before he returns to his proper family?”

“All I have ever wanted,” Servilia says, her voice drifting haughty and cool as if Atia were not driving her into the furniture, “is for the good of the republic.”

Atia puts two fingers inside Servilia, watches as her eyes go wide and she moans while her cunt pulses. Servilia’s face softens, her voice serene, without a hitch.

“I am content exactly where I am, Atia of the Julii. _I_ know where I stand.”

Atia’s insides blaze at Servilia’s smirk. Without any further consideration, Atia bends to put her mouth against Servilia’s nub.

The jolt that runs through Servilia’s body beneath her pushes Atia’s tongue further into the hair there, and she replaces her tongue with a thumb as she bends to press a bruising kiss to Servilia’s entrance.

Servilia’s mouth produces sound, but Atia is deaf to everything but the thrumming between her own ears as she works Servilia, cunt and nub, lips and hair, until she comes with a yelp and a spasming around Atia’s fingers inside of her. Atia leaves her fingers where they are as she pulls her mouth, thick with sweat and bitterness, away and spans one of Servilia’s hips with her other hand. A hundred triumphant words dance in Atia’s throat, but she says nothing, merely watches Servilia pant and sink, boneless, for several long minutes as her breathing slows and her eyes close.

When Atia eventually pulls free, Servilia is still, as if asleep or—gods, please—dead. The house is silent around them, even Servilia’s body slave nowhere in sight. Atia gets to her feet, smoothing her clothing, and makes her way toward the entryway.

In one of the cubicula she passes, a stack of parchment catches her attention. Atia does not hesitate; she has the top letter in her hands in moments, where familiar handwriting stares back up at her. She reads scarcely three sentences before tossing it onto the table and turning to leave.      

> _—concern yourself with Clodius. Whatever else he does, it will not come to harm to anyone connected to me._
> 
> _As to my niece, that you are keeping her in sight is all to the best, as I had no end of complaints from Calpurnia when she first returned to the city. Do as you will to contain her—_

Servilia is sitting upright and watching, her face entirely inscrutable, as Atia returns to the atrium. Atia reaches for an insult and finds she has nothing but deadened air within her mind and lungs. She spends the walk home fighting back bile, and once she is ensconced within her own walls, she drinks half a pitcher of the most vile wine in the house and almost immediately vomits it, and the lingering taste and shame of Servilia’s cunt, into a washing bowl.

“Domina?”

Merula’s hands scorch the back of Atia’s neck, and she slaps them away, adding a smack to Merula’s face for extra measure. When her head and hands stop ringing, Atia looks at the mark left on Merula’s cheek and takes a long, steadying breath.

“Fetch me the most disobedient slave today, Merula, and the whip.”

* * *

Clodius has overstepped Caesar’s patience by the time autumn settles on the city, and Atia receives a letter from her uncle at about the time she hears of renewed opposition to Clodius within the Senate. She leaves it unread for several days, busying herself instead with a strapping new slave and with Octavia’s atrocious cithara playing.

She’s given an hour of blissful silence one afternoon and has spent it asleep in the atrium when Merula awakens her.

“Domina, an invitation from your aunt.”

Calpurnia’s dinner that evening is a collection of some of the best widows in the city, including—to Atia’s badly hidden surprise—Servilia, who lies opposite Atia for the entire meal and asks her polite questions about Octavia’s musical progress and how Octavian’s letters go. Atia answers with her loudest cheer, earning the occasional curious glance from Calpurnia where she has arranged herself in high hauteur at the head of the group.

“My husband has written from the front,” Calpurnia remarks after the dormice. Neither Servilia nor Atia looks her way as the other women begin clamoring for the news. “More battles—successful, of course—and an assurance that he will seek Cicero’s restoration to Rome, as Clodius’s little farce has gone on _quite_ long enough.”

Whatever Servilia feels or does not feel is unreadable beneath her mask of pleasure, though Atia feels a touch of bitterness nonetheless at the knowledge that a similar missive most probably sits amongst the others in Servilia’s lair. The sting lingers upon her return home, where she stares at her unopened letter for long minutes before tearing it open.   

> _C. Julius Caesar to his niece Atia sends fond greetings_

She stops to breathe, swallowing past the constriction of her throat, before continuing.  

> _I enclose another missive for Octavian._
> 
> _You must know of Clodius’s insults to brother Pompey. I am told they may spread to me in the weeks to come. As foretold, I see no soon end of my time here afield. Should you assist Calpurnia in whatever may be necessary to hold the city in our name this autumn, I would be most grateful_.

It continues for another few lines, but Atia’s vision sticks upon _our name_ and her eyes will move no further. She tosses it and the attached letter for Octavian—of multiple sentences, even—onto the floor.

 _If he wishes to tell what he thinks is my business to all of his whores in Rome, so be it_ , Atia tells herself, as a slave offers her wine. She pushes the twinge of shame that wears Servilia’s smile out of her head—that a woman of the Julii should allow herself to be even temporarily enchanted by such a lizard!—and takes a long drink. _I have his blood, and I have a son._

“Bring me Octavian.”

“He is asleep, domina—”

“Ah, well.” She gets to her feet, gathering the letters, and turns toward the cubiculum where Octavian sleeps. “Those pretty little snakes tonight have kept me from my boy. I shall have to bring his uncle Caesar to him myself.”

**Author's Note:**

>  **Content Notes** : This fic contains the usual Roman amounts of casual/internalized misogyny, a mention of vomit, and slaves and the brief physical abuse thereof.
> 
>  **Historical Notes** : 58 BCE, the year Caesar began his campaigns in Gaul, was also the tribunate of [Publius Clodius Pulcher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius_Clodius_Pulcher), a populist (“populist”?) politician known for his feuds with Cicero and Pompey and for his participation in 62 BCE in a delightfully absurd political scandal, the so-called [Bona Dea affair](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bona_Dea#Clodius_and_the_Bona_Dea_scandal); Caesar passively helped Clodius avoid being convicted of a capital crime. 
> 
> The Romans (at least publicly) disliked “polluting” the mouth through oral sex, particularly cunnilingus (a man submitting to a woman in such a way was seen as a violation of the natural order of respectable men penetrating their partners). Of course, all the writings that survive alluding to these taboos are by men, who also sound rather [bewildered by the existence of female sexuality in general](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuality_in_ancient_Rome#Female.E2.80.93female_sex), and little is known about f/f sexual behavior overall or what women thought of cunnilingus. (Sources: [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuality_in_ancient_Rome#Os_impurum), [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/u66i8/i_have_a_possibly_prurient_and_somewhat_unusual/c4sqekz/))
> 
> [The historical Atia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atia_\(mother_of_Augustus\)) bears little resemblance to HBO's version, but she did live at [Velitrae](https://www.google.com/maps/place/00049+Velletri,+Metropolitan+City+of+Rome,+Italy/@41.6614261,12.4981582,10z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x13259d3837d7c5e3:0x55f6bd41422d989d!8m2!3d41.6868422!4d12.7785347), not too far outside Rome, with her husband before his death in 59 BCE, a piece of history I've stolen for this version of Atia.


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